Summary: Additional proof that the “Open Source” policy at Microsoft is still something along the lines of “We are not allowed to be seen as attacking Free software but quietly we have to”

THE RECENT REMARK from Hernán Rincón (insulting “Open Source” [1, 2, 3], which gets adopted widely where he works for Microsoft around Brazil) have helped a lot of people see that Microsoft it no friend of “Open Source”, but this does not prevent Microsoft from carrying on with this PR charade. Microsoft’s booster Marius Oiaga is helping them right now:

Microsoft, once the anti-open source poster child, says that the company has evolved as the world changed and that it is now committed to openness.

Watch them use their beloved Novell to spread this lie:

Microsoft made a critical move in 2006, when it inked a Windows and Linux interoperability alliance with open source vendor Novell.

Since then, both Microsoft and Novell have made investments into making sure that Windows Server and SUSE Linux can play nice together for customers that need to run both platforms in their heterogeneous environments.

Let’s face it, Microsoft’s biggest cash cow is suffering (that’s Office) and while Microsoft keeps pretending to harbour “open source” on Windows it is actually attacking OpenOffice.org for Windows, even though it’s “open source” and for Windows. What does that say about Microsoft’s attitude towards “open source” on any platform at all?

Microsoft’s hiring of people specifically to fight OpenOffice.org (and LibreOffice or Lotus, by extension) is something that we covered before [1, 2]. It has turned rather pathetic. Microsoft is now blatantly lying in new videos. “Source of one of the quotes in #MSFTvOOo video,” says Jan from Red Hat, is a case “from 2006(!) about Windows 2003(!)” (he also gave a pointer to Microsoft.com). Someone who prefers to remain anonymous has chosen to study Microsoft’s ‘beef’ in this latest FUD campaign and here is what he or she found, based on this video:

Microsoft has a long-established practice of disarming competition by not acknowledging it, because acknowledging the competition gives it power. Well, the Redmond giant has changed stance when it comes to OpenOffice and launched a video attack on the free alternative to the Office software suite.

A few hours after this story was published, Microsoft set the video as “private,” meaning it can no longer be viewed by the public. We found it hosted on Microsoft.com, however, so if you have Silverlight, go watch it there.

Educational organizations get locked-in and so do students. What happens if a student goes to work at a place that uses OpenOffice.org on GNU/Linux? Are they doomed? Nonsense. It’s a GUI and they point, click and type. For a school district to spend $millions annually on software they can do without should be a crime or at least a breach of fiduciary responsibility to use the tax payers’ money wisely. What does it teach a kid that his school spends more on software that they don’t need when the system has to be cut back somewhere else because the premise of the whole situation was that the budget was tight? Do you think they might have to cut something that does educate students, Homer?

Oh! The Horror! The Horror of educational systems that cannot do the maths. There are thousands of systems that have deployed OpenOffice.org and GNU/Linux with no problems except what to do with the savings.

In due course, more details emerged of how Mindcraft had been able to draw directly on support from Microsoft when tuning the system, but had not involved Red Hat, whose distribution was being used for the tests, in the same way. This meant that several important tweaks that would have improved the latter’s performance were lacking. Indeed, it later turned out that the tests had actually been conducted in a Microsoft laboratory.

[...]

It seems that Microsoft has forgotten this important lesson. For it has put together a three-minute video of customers explaining why they switched from OpenOffice.org to Microsoft Office.

The criticisms made in the video are not really the point – they are mostly about OpenOffice.org not being a 100% clone of Microsoft Office, and compatibility problems with Microsoft’s proprietary formats. The key issue is the exactly the same as it was for the Mindcraft benchmarks. You don’t compare a rival’s product with your own if it is not comparable. And you don’t make this kind of attack video unless you are really, really worried about the growing success of a competitor.

Just as it did in 1999 for GNU/Linux, Apache and Samba, the company has now clearly announced that OpenOffice.org is a serious rival to Microsoft Office, and should be seriously considered by anyone using the latter.

The most popular open source office solution is OpenOffice, original released as an office suite for Linux but later released for Windows.

OpenOffice features the Writer, Calc, Impress and Base applications for word processing, spreadsheets, presentations and database management, all free, while technical support is provided in the form of help documents on the website and a directory of consultants, although this last option is intended only for businesses. OpenOffice is available from download.openoffice.org.

Note that in the near future, OpenOffice will be available as LibreOffice.

Oracle Open Office

If Open Office appeals to you but you require online support, then Oracle Open Office might be your best choice. Offering the same functionality as OpenOffice, Oracle Open Office is available to purchase from www.oracle.com as an enterprise-class office suite based on the same open standards as OpenOffice.

Oracle is spinning its participation in a forthcoming Open Document Format (ODF) event as proof of its continued commitment to the OpenOffice.org community.

Gavin seems to be the one spinning, not Oracle. He too seems interested in hurting OpenOffice.org, so it’s not just Microsoft which does it very publicly right now. If it hurts Microsoft, it means we need more of the same. It’s an indication of weakness. █

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Word processors are the worst offenders though. There’s simply no reason to ever use a word processor. Anything fewer than 5 pages long may as well be text and anything longer should be type-set. But no, people like the illusion of ‘control’ by being a slave to a machine, telling it every little detail and usually doing a piss-poor job of it …

Word processors still assume that we need to print stuff out (like books, no hyperlinks), sildes assume we use an overhead projector and can’t just have 200 images flying by in 15 minutes while the speaker goes along, and I generally find that LaTeX with latex-pdf-html tools serve me much better. Google has already attempted to integrate office suites+collaboration with the Web (plus multimedia).

twitter Reply:October 14th, 2010 at 8:06 am

There are a few places where workflows have not caught up with technology and people expect printed reports. School reports and places where paper files are still used are good examples. It would be better if work places moved to wikis but issues of “cheating” through collaboration dog this in school settings.

Wherever these issues arise, free software word processors are more than up to the task. Kword is my favorite for quick reports on paper, but Open Office is fine and others swear by Abiword. Thanks to ODF and Open Office, you can use any of these and coolaborate with the few dinosaurs that insist on Microsoft Word.

I’m surprised that Microsoft could find anyone who says they like the ribbon interface they threw onto Office. I remember Word fans cursing it back in 2005. I suppose this is why the company had to dredge up pleased customers from 2003.

Compatibility with their own file formats, which they needlessly changed to their phoney open XML, is also a sore spot. Very few people actually use OOXML and when Microsoft does force it on people, they get a lot of pushback. People expect information to come from the web, where standards rule, and won’t cooperate if it means they have to pay $400 for an office suite. It’s easier, they will rightly tell you, to use Google Docs, Open Office, or plain old text if you are not swift enough to run a wiki. Office file format wars are ancient history because people routed around this damage a decade ago.

Microsoft is also FUDing up Java, according to Groklaw’s news picks. There is so much spin, it goes in different directions and none of it is worth much attention. The nastiest quote also attacks the FSF and comes from someone who was recently hired by Microsoft.

All of it goes to prove that Microsoft is still fighting rivals from the mid 90s that no one cares about anymore. Free implementations of Java provided by GNU are safe and Open Office is more than adequate for escaping the Office trap. Once you get your old Docs to ODF, you really do have choices about what software you can use. Microsoft is lost in the past and can be safely ignored.

Microsoft is also FUDing up Java, according to Groklaw’s news picks. There is so much spin, it goes in different directions and none of it is worth much attention. The nastiest quote also attacks the FSF and comes from someone who was recently hired by Microsoft.

Can you please add some links/quotes to this?

twitter Reply:October 14th, 2010 at 8:22 am

Look at PJ’s news picks for Mr. Rabellino. She points to both his FUD and his declaration of “Redmond, here we come.” I’d rather not feed him more and simply say that I believe the FSF when they say that their free java implementation is not troubled by Oracle’s recent moves against Google’s Tivoisation and non free software friendly Android. The FSF’s great attention to details is always a winner and people who boldly ignore such issues because they are “not afraid of code” are always losers.

Anyone can look these up if they want to but probably should not because there is no real issue for users of GNU code. Add PJ’s news picks to their favorite feed client. My point was that there’s a lot of FUD out there as the Microsoft friendly people take advantage of Oracle’s ill considered move against Google to FUD their mid 90s rival and promote Mono. I like PJ’s advice,

I hope the value of the GPL is now clear to everyone. If Java had been GPLd from day one, all of it, what a difference it could have made now to Java.

What Else is New

We’re being told by Microsoft that the “old” Microsoft is just a thing of the past while Microsoft keeps liaising with oppressive regimes like China’s and Trump's; what will it take for media in Microsoft’s pocket to openly admit that it all boils down to publicity stunts and nice-sounding euphemisms?

The GNOME Board of Directors works for IBM and/or Microsoft at GitHub; it’s not entirely surprising that despite opposition from some GNOME developers the head of the GNOME Foundation, preceded by people who have since defected to Microsoft, described Dr. Richard Stallman as “reprehensible” and called for him to step down (from his very own thing, never mind the “G” in GNOME standing for GNU)

Principled, opinionated, self-governing individuals aren't any good for corporations looking to not only use their projects but to totally control those projects (copyleft licences such as GPL already make that hard enough for them, so it takes more time for legal 'hacks' such as software patents, "clown computing" and GitHub)

Certain groups that claim to represent the values of "Open Source" are in fact promoting the interests of Microsoft, GitHub etc. (i.e. monopoly or "open" as in a bunch of monopolies like Facebook and Microsoft sharing code snippets/resources over GitHub)

Torvalds and others who are middle-aged (or older) males are often torpedoed using weakly-backed allegations (or insinuations/innuendo) of sexism; that does not seem to matter and won't matter when they treat men the same (or worse)

Linus Torvalds was not fully canceled; nor was Richard Stallman, who's still heading the GNU Project (under conditions specified by those looking to oust him; people who code for Microsoft GitHub and many IBM employees)

General Hugh Shelton, Chairman of the Board of Red Hat, explains (keynote in 2011 Red Hat Summit/JBoss World) that he was introduced to the system as part of a military campaign; it basically helped war, not antiwar

Techrights examines Red Hat’s (IBM’s) hypocritical claims about the Free Software Foundation, founded by Richard Stallman back when IBM was the “big scary monopolist”; IBM employees were prominent among those pushing to oust Stallman from the GNU Project, which he founded, as well

The (in)famous letter against Richard Stallman (RMS), which was signed by many Red Hat employees with Microsoft (GitHub) accounts, doesn’t look particularly good in light of recent revelations/findings; it increasingly looks like IBM simply wants Microsoft-hosted and “permissively” licensed stuff, just like another project it announced yesterday and another that it promoted yesterday

One might not expect this from a so-called 'charity'; the Gates Foundation's critics are often met with unprecedented aggression, threats and retribution, which make one wonder if it's really a charity or a greedy cult of personalities (Bill and Melinda)

The assault on the media by Bill Gates is a subject not often explored by the media (maybe because a lot of it is already bribed by him); but we're beginning to gather new and important evidence that explains how critics are muzzled (even fired) and critical pieces spiked, never to see the light of day anywhere

Microsoft buying GitHub does not demonstrate that Microsoft loves Open Source (GitHub is not Open Source and may never be) but that it loves monopoly and coercion (what GitHub is all about and why it must be rejected)

The European Patent Office (EPO) keeps granting fake patents that cause a lot of real harm (examiners are pressured to play along and participate in this unlawful agenda); nobody is happy except those who profit from needless, frivolous lawsuits